In another example of traditional GOP hypocrisy, Republican State Senator Dr. Joey Hensley (TN), a staunch “family values” and anti-LGBTQ politician, has been having a salacious affair with his nurse, who also happens to be his second cousin and pain-pill popping patient.

Hensley’s bitter divorce proceedings and incestuous affair are as unethical as they are salacious. A family physician who has run for office since 2002 on a platform of conservative Christian values, Hensley been married and divorced four times. When he’s not boinking someone else’s wife, he’s doing all he can to protect families from the “evils” of homosexuality.

Hensley first gained national attention in 2012 as a sponsor of the “Don’t Say Gay” bill, which would have banned public school teachers from even mentioning that homosexuality exists. During one hearing that year, Hensley commented, “I don’t think Modern Family is appropriate for children to watch” — because it features a married gay couple raising children.

Thank gawd that bill died before coming to a vote in 2014. So this year Hensely is sponsoring a bill from the Tennessee Family Action Council, HB1406 that would make children created using donor sperm illegitimate — an attempt to make it harder for gay and lesbian parents to establish paternity.

If HB1406 passes, any individual who did not physically contribute to the conception of a child would only be able to become a legal guardian of that child by filing for a second-parent adoption.

Hensley’s torrid affair is now a matter of public record. His cousin the nurse Lori Barber is leaving her husband for Hensley.

According to Nashville Scene, the details sound straight out of a soap opera.

A doctor and his younger nurse fall in love. They continue their torrid affair even after his ex-wife tips off the nurse’s husband, a local politician, to the salacious goings-on. As the divorce moves forward, discovery turns up that the nurse is not just the doctor’s employee and his lover, but his patient, with a predilection for pain pills. And, oh, she’s his second cousin, too.

But this is not General Hospital, not Grey’s Anatomy. This is the town of Hohenwald (pop. 3,703) in Lewis County, where bitter divorce proceedings have brought to light possibly unethical behavior by Dr. Joey Hensley, a Republican state senator who also happens to be a family physician — and one who has run for office since 2002 on a platform of conservative Christian values.

Hensley, 61, was subpoenaed to appear last week in Williamson County Circuit Court to testify in the divorce proceedings of Hohenwald Vice Mayor Don Barber and his wife Lori. He refused to show up, citing legislative and medical privilege.

“I didn’t have time to do it,” Hensley said when contacted on Friday afternoon. “I had nothing to do with the court case, and any testimony I would have given wouldn’t have made any difference.”

But according to the sworn testimony of both Barbers, Hensley has been having an affair with Lori since 2014.